The Devil's Assassin (7 page)

June smiles slightly at the truth of this.

“But the prisoner hadn’t heard anything from this friend
about the condition of his lemur in weeks and he was afraid the man had let
Sava get sick or die. Could I please go get him out of there—if he was still
worth getting’? So I did. The animal was a little underfed, but still healthy.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before the addict really did ignore the
animal’s needs, by the looks of the man. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t sell
the animal for his fix. That may well have been coming. Who knows? When I got
home with the lemur, I clued the social services office on to him.”

He pauses and looks at the lemur in the cat carrier. “Of
course, I had to get a permit to keep him. Now Sava and I are good friends and
my prisoner gets regular updates on his former pet. Taking care of Sava has
been a learning experience for me and I hadn’t thought of keeping him
permanently. But he’s happy, and I like having him around.”

June smiles at Linus as if this story is confirmation of
some feeling she had about him. “I’m very happy for Sava. She’s very lucky to
have you to look out for her. . . . Tell you what. I’ll charge you half the
usual fee to look after her.”

Linus smiles at her joke. “What’s that amount to?”

“Dinner when you get back.”

Linus is surprised. “I’d like that very much…. Sava’s a ‘he’
by the way.”

She crouches down to the animal’s carrier.
“Sorry, Sava!”
To Linus she asks, “So where are you headed?”

“Ontario, Canada,” he says. They have a recent death which
fits the creature’s MO. I want to see if there’s any information we can add to
our own. I’ve come to the end of what I can get from the Internet and the
library. . . . How’s the DNA test coming?”

“Not done yet, of course. It’s only been overnight since I
talked to you.”

“How about the search?”

“I understand they have about ten people in the field right
now looking.”

“Ten?” exclaims Linus. “Well, it’s something I guess. I have
a plane to catch. Thanks again for taking Sava. Here are his care instructions,
he says to the primatologist.”

She laughs as he hands her a letter-sized envelope. “Watch
what you say to their police, Linus. Officially, there is no creature.
Capisce
?”

He nods reluctantly and turns to go.

“Linus?”

He turns back. She almost says something and then hesitates
and says something else. “Be careful.”

He smiles but doesn’t linger there or try to dissect what
she had meant to say. “Thanks, and get some sleep! You look terrible.”

June smiles as Linus leaves.

Linus walks into the reception area of a police station. The
sergeant behind the desk seems young.

“Can I see the detective in charge of the Bobbie Rohan
investigation?”

The sergeant looks with distrust at Linus.
“You a reporter?”

“I have information I’d like to share with the detective. It
may be critical to solving the case.”

The sergeant’s distrust doesn’t seem allayed. “What’s your
name?”

“Linus Hather.”

The sergeant picks up the phone. “Detective, there’s a fella
out here says he’s got info on the Rohan case . . . No . . . I didn’t ask . . .
Okay.”

The policeman hangs up the phone. “It looks like Detective
Hanson wants to see you.
Behind that door there.”

Linus nods his thanks and goes to the door indicated, a
wooden door with a glass top half. He knocks on the partially open door.

“Come.”

Linus walks into the small office. “Good afternoon,
Detective. I’m Linus Hather.”

Hanson is broad, perhaps a few pounds heavier than Linus.
His hair is short and brown. He stands up to offer his hand and it becomes
apparent to Linus that this man is tall as well as broad. They shake hands.

“Have a seat, Mr. Hather. I’m always eager to get help from
the community in solving a case. What have you got?”

Linus sits in the chair in front of the Detective’s desk.
“Actually, I’m not from your community. I’m from New Jersey. I read about the
killing from a small article in the Haliburton Tribune. Miss Rohan’s death is
similar to a few others. I’ve brought printouts of the relevant articles. One
is from China, one from Argentina, and the last one there is the Haliburton
Tribune article.”

Linus hands off the printouts to the detective who reads
them.

“Okay. I see similarities. Are you suggesting that my
suspect is flying all over God’s creation killing people indiscriminately?”

“No. But you’ll probably prefer that explanation to the one
I’m about to give you.”

Linus gives the man a moment to respond. Hanson raises his
eyebrows impatiently, and Linus continues. “Your suspect in these cases is not
a man. It’s an animal.
Different individuals, of course, but
the same species.”

The detective is surprised but he smiles.
“Animal?!
Where’d you ever get an idea like that?”

“I know it’s hard to believe, Detective, but that’s what it
is. I’ve seen it. It was trapped in my house for ten hours. What you are
looking for is a short, hairy hominid with a retractable lance, a needle
really.”

When Hanson hears Linus mention the needle his attention
becomes keen, though he has been ready to throw the man out on his ears.
“A needle?”

He puts up his hand forestalling Linus’ answer. Hanson
doesn’t want to give in to the ridiculous story too easily. “Why would you fly
all the way up here from New Jersey with some cockamamie story about homicidal
ape men? . . . When did you get into town?”

Linus is unruffled.
“Today.”

“Got any proof of that?”

Linus reaches into his jacket pocket and throws his plane
tickets on the desk. Hanson looks at them carefully and hands them back
unapologetically. “And
your
ID?”

“If you call Dr. Jay Miele at Rutgers University, he will
vouch for my story.” Linus hands him a slip of paper with Jay’s number on it
and his driver’s license. Hanson looks at the paper with suspicion.

“Frankly, I shouldn’t even bother, and I wouldn’t normally,
but it’s a slow day.”

He picks up the phone and dials.
“Dr.
Miele, hello.
This is Detective Hanson in Haliburton County, Ontario. I
have somebody here who says you can vouch for a story of his . . . Yes, that’s
him. May I ask what are you a doctor of and where? . . . Biology, I see and
Rutgers. What’s this about a short, hairy hominid with a retractable needle? .
. .
Previously undiscovered species.
Um hmm . . . mm
hmm . . . Okay for now, Dr. Miele. I may need to talk to you again. . . .
Yep, bye now.”

The detective grabs his chin in a gesture of consternation
as he hangs up the phone.

“Okay. Let’s assume for a moment that this is on the up and
up. What’s your interest in it?”

“I
wanna
give you all the
information I have. I observed this creature up close and personal for almost
eleven hours, trapped in my basement. I’ve researched it for the past two days.
I’m offering you all the information I have for anything you have got in the
way of evidence. Anything to add to the creature’s MO. There’s one loose in New
Jersey. It’s killed and I’d like to see it caught . . . again.”

Detective Hanson’s sigh signals that he is resigned to at
least following up on this lead. Up to this point in the Rohan investigation
he’s had nothing. “Okay. We exchange information.”

›

A short time later a police cruiser drives up a wooded
driveway and parks near the small cabin that used to be Bobbie Rohan’s full-time
home. Linus and Detective Hanson get out of the car.

“I can see why someone would want to live out here,” Linus
says.
“Peaceful and beautiful.”

“It usually is,” responds the detective. “Like I said,
there’s not much to see. There’s no forensic evidence that we can find at all.
The window in the living room was unlocked,” he points at the window, “but
closed when we got here. The killer probably came in and went through it. We
dusted it for prints, but nothing.”

Linus heads over to inspect it. He makes as if to open it
and then looks at Hanson to see if it’s all right.

“I have to go inside and unlock it,” says the detective.

He pulls down the yellow police tape on the front door and
uses a key to open the door. The detective goes inside and undoes the window
lock for Linus. Linus pushes up on the window. It is difficult to push up but
he does so somewhat noisily.

“It’s pretty difficult,” says Linus. “And the racket would
surely wake up all but the deepest sleepers.”

“Hmm,” agrees Hanson. “Try it a little slower this time,
like you had all the time in the world, which you do in these parts.”

Hanson shoves the window back down. Linus again attempts to
lift the window, slower and more quietly this time. To do so, he must do it
very slowly. Finally, he gets it up and speaks through it to the detective.

“This creature is patient if nothing else.”

“Whoever it was had all night.”

Linus nods and then walks around to the open door. The
detective closes and locks the window again.

“Can I see where she was killed?”

Detective Hanson nods and leads the way to the bedroom. It
is small, and simply furnished with just a bed and four drawer dresser. Linus
looks at the door knob as he goes into the room.

“Nothing unusual in here,” says Hanson. “She was killed in
the bed. The windows were locked. She was lying in bed in her nightgown,
bedspread over her. She didn’t seem to have suffered.”

“And you say she had a spot of dried blood on her chest?”

“Yeah.
The medical examiner found
it.
Thought it was a pin prick or something minor like that.”

Linus leaves the bedroom for the kitchen. He looks at the
table, the windows, the sink and finally the refrigerator. He looks at it and
motions to it with his head.

“Mind if I peek inside?”

Hanson raises an eyebrow, but says, “Go ahead. You’d make an
interesting detective, Mr. Hather. What do you do?”

As he looks inside the fridge, Linus responds.
“Prison guard.
Maximum security facility
in south New Jersey.”

“No kidding? Why didn’t you tell me? You might have had me
on your side sooner.”

Linus smiles.
“I’ll remember that
next time.”

“We cleared that refrigerator out yesterday,” the detective
mentions. “Didn’t seem to be much sense leaving the food in there, don’t you
think?”

Linus gets up from his inspection of the refrigerator and
looks at Hanson. “I
wanna
thank you for having an
open mind about this, Detective. As I said before, this creature made the same
attempt on me, right down to the climb through the window. My window, however,
was locked…. Anyway, thanks for taking me out here.”

The detective makes a move toward the door. “I don’t know if
it’s done any good, but you’re welcome. With your pictures of the creature and
Professor Miele’s faxed statement, at least I have somewhere to start.”

“How far can you get on foot in three days?” asks Linus.

“Maybe a hundred miles in any direction.”

“That’s a lot of area to cover,” says Linus. “Listen, I’m
sorry to abandon you, but I have to catch a plane to China. There’s been a
similar killing there. I’ll let you know if I get any useful information.”

The two men take a last look at the cabin and climb into the
police cruiser. “At this point anything will be helpful. I’d like very much to
prevent this from happening again.”

“It is a dangerous creature, Detective. Unfortunately we
don’t know how often it kills. It may travel five hundred miles before killing
again for all we know.”

The car drives away, down a forested and peaceful rural
road. It is a little less peaceful to these two men who know there is a killer
hiding among the trees.

A small rental car pulls up to the iron-gated entrance of
the
Neijiang Teachers College
in
Sichuan Province, China. Linus speaks with a security guard at the gate who
lets Linus drive onto the campus when he tells him who he is going to see.
Linus parks in a visitor parking area in front of the main entrance and gets
out of the car. He looks at his watch and sees that it is 4:00. He is on time
for his meeting with Mei Yuan, an English teacher at the school.

After a few
minutes of waiting in the reception area, Mei Yuan arrives smiling. She is
taller and more apparently Western in her attire than the receptionist as a
result of having studied at Columbia University in New York City. Linus stands
up as she walks in and shakes her hand.

“Mr. Hather?” she
asks.

“Ni hao,” says
Linus, the Chinese greeting being very nearly the only words he knows in the
language. “They gave me your name down at the police station in Xiongjiawan as
someone who would be able to translate for me in speaking with them.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Hather.
I am Mei Yuan. Yes, I can help translate for you. That would be 40 RMB per
hour for the service. Can I ask what your business is with the police?”

“I’m looking into
the death of an old woman near Xiongjiawan. I want to share some information I
have with the investigating detective, and hopefully get some information as
well.”

Mei Yuan smiles.
“Well, okay. As long as it’s not you who’s in trouble. I’m an English teacher,
not a lawyer. Let me grab my bag and we can go.”